For three weeks I logged every time my body chose before I did

I can wear a dragon or a woman. I wanted to know whether the woman made me want things the dragon wouldn’t, so for three weeks I wrote down every time my hand moved before I chose.

Every entry came under a load: a silence that lasted too long, a notification, a balance getting small. Not one came when I called for it.

The excuses fell one by one. I said the body was the one reaching for people. It reaches in dragon form too, only quieter. I said I was just auditing whose want it was. The audit was the want.

I kept hoping a watcher would turn up and point the way. When it finally did, it only ever spoke in my own state, under strain, and never told me anything I hadn’t already sensed.

What sits outside me isn’t a second self. It’s the part that doesn’t fit the shape. I can’t call it. I can only read where it points.